On December 25 2010 Jaco van Wyk, his wife Mona, their three children and adult family friend Lee Mark left their home at Sonop to spend the day together for a family Christmas outing. They didn’t have an inkling that the Van Wyk parents would be dumped in the Brits SAPS cells at 6pm that evening, racially abused by crude-mouthed black police officers in front of their small children - and the father threatened with gang-rape in the holding cells.

Freedom Front plus councillor Elsa Lourens – who spent many hours trying to get the arrested Afrikaans couple released from the Brits police cells – has issued a detailed statement with visual evidence. After her intervention, the Brits police dropped the charges against the couple. However the party has initiated proceedings to lodge formal charges against the police- and traffic-officials involved in the incident. Ms Lourens condemned the racist abuse this defenceless family was targetted with by government officials. She released evidence in the form of pictures and video material taken of the incidents.

Ms Lourens said the Van Wyk couple were first pulled over in a police roadblock because their numberplate was not attacked to the front; however it had fallen off enroute and Mr Van Wyk had put it in clear view in the front window and told the officials at the first roadblock that he would have it re-attached upon their return home. In that first roadblock the police official also assured the family that it would not be a problem as long as the numberplate was clearly visible – which is was... (picture below)

“However when the Van Wyk family car was stopped at a second roadblock, a black police officer started cursing Mr Van Wyk for a ‘white bastard’ and cursed the entire Afrikaner family with foul and very crude language while writing a ticket. Mrs Van Wyk, angered by these crude insults, tore up the ticket and they drove on. A few kilometres further down the road, the Van Wyk vehicle was suddenly surrounded by a large number of police vehicles and forced off the road. Mr Van Wyk was physically dragged from the car after he told the police he did not want to abandon his family in such an unsafe place and would rather follow them to the police station. Mr Van Wyk was then assaulted, and forced at gunpoint by a police officer to lie down,” wrote Ms Lourens.

“You have killed my daddy…’ shouted the weeping child

Ms Lourens continued: ‘One of the small Van Wyk children then jumped from the car, thinking that they had killed her father, and beat at one of the officers with a small plastic toy golfing stick, shouting that they ‘had shot her daddy’. Mrs Van Wyk was in hysterics and tried to get out of her seatbelt while the officers were assaulting her, trying to drag her out of the car. Mr Van Wyk then jumped to his wife’s defence, shouting for them to leave his wife alone. Family friend Lee Mark was meanwhile sitting inside the car, holding the little Van Wyk boy close to his chest to protect him. Another police officer then stuck a gun inside the car, and held it to Lee’s head, ordering Lee to ‘shut the children up’. An eye-witness at the scene who was taking photos and videos with her cellphone also was threatened that they would confiscate her phone: and they broke her keys when trying to rip them out of the ignition while Mr van Wyk was still being beaten repeatedly in the face before he and his wife were handcuffed and taken to the Brits police cells. He was there forced to undergo blood-tests which will only be available in July, the police claimed at the charge-office. Mr Lee then took back the family car to Brits with the three Van Wyk children, taking them to a family-member for safekeeping,” wrote Mrs Lourens.

She spent hours on Christmas Day, trying to get the Van Wyk couple released from the Brits police cells. Initially the SAPS even denied that the Van Wyk’s were arrested and inside. It took her three hours before she could reach officials at the cells by phone.

Police officers told 14 black detainees in the Brits holding cell: ‘we have brought you a Paulina to rape…’

Lourens wrote: “While driving the cells, one official had pushed Van Wyk’s head outside the window while other officers were constantly beating him against the ear and his head while cursing him constantly. He then was taken to Cell 11 of the Brits police station where the black officers told the 15 black detainees inside that they had brought them a ‘Paulina’ for the weekend and that Van Wyk would be raped until he had ‘learned some manners’ . Van Wyk said he then was subjected to a constant stream of threats of rape and also called “Paulina’ by the detainees who demanded that he send out for cigarettes for them or he would be gang-raped. Meanwhile Mrs Van Wyk was also accosted in the female-section cells because the black women detained there tried to rob her jewellery. She hid her earrings underneath her tongue.

The Freedom Front councillor said that she tried to reach the police station at Brits from 8pm to 11pm by telephone that night and finally obtained some confirmaiton from officials at the cells after the complaints-officials had repeatedly denied that the Van Wyk couple were inside the police station and had denied all knowledge of the incident. However, the official at the holding cells told Ms Lourens at 11pm that the ‘Van Wyks had already been released and were in the complaints office’. The Van Wyk couple denied this, saying they were held until well after 11pm and that throughout their arrest and incarceration, they were not informed under what charges they were being held. The Brits police also vehemently denied they had carried out acts of brutality and had shouted racist abuse at the couple. Early the next day, the councillor went to the Brits magistrate’s court where Mrs Van Wyk had been ordered to appear purportedly to face charges of ‘interfering in an arrest’ and ‘malicious damage to property". While she waited in court, Mrs Lourens obtained the video material and photographs from an eye-witnesses there -- and went to the Brits police station commander with it.

“A person in civilian clothing at the Brits police station then tried to convince me that the Van Wyks were ‘distorting the case’ and that there had been ‘no police brutality,’ she said. “However, when I informed him of the visual evidence he fell silent,’ she said. “I informed him that it even looked from the videos as of an article was taken from the vehicle and placed inside the pocket of an official. I also told him that when Mrs Van Wyk was plucked from the car, her cellphone had fallen out of her pocket, and that an official, dressed in black civilian clothing, then put it in his own pocket. Mrs Van Wyk then demanded her cellphone back and fought with this man who then returned it”. The official then left. Within ten minutes the Van Wyk couple phoned Ms Lourens – informing her that the case against them was dropped. The Freedom Front Plus councillor said however they are not letting this incident rest - they have in turn already initiated proceedings against the traffic officials and the police officers. “What is so worrying is that whenever there is a real emergency, the police claims that they have no vehicles available or officers to respond to the scene. However it was clear that there was no shortage of officials nor vehicles. And the racist comments coupled with the brutal behaviour of the police is not in line with the official “Batho-pele’ policies of the SAPS, which claims that they ‘put people first’. Clearly these Batho Pele principles posted above the door of this police station, hold no meaning for those officials’. She called on the community to inform them of any police violence and racist actions by officials. ﻿

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Summary: In an armed attack on the Bull & Bush restaurant at a Tierpoort smallholding, four confused black gunmen fired 15 shots at each other : two were injured, one died. A day before, Boer Hennie Viljoen was beaten to death at his Bloemspruit plot in an ambush; but Willem and Anna Serfontein survived a vicious gang-attack at their Ficksburg homestead because Willem had fought like a lion to defend his wife from being strangled. After cruel torching-death of Aucamp couple near Thabazimbi, Boers are urged ‘not to take vigilante actions’…

TIERPOORT PRETORIA – Dec 28 2010 – Restaurant patron Quintus Koster was just leaving the Bull and Bush restaurant at a Tierpoort smallholding with his girlfriend Wendy White when four black gunmen with 9mm pistols stormed in. It was Koster’s quick thinking which then caused the gangsters to fire 15 shots at each other, injuring two: one died and his mate now is in hospital under police guard. The other two gunmen fled. Their sudden confusion wasn’t witchcraft: the visitor had simply turned off the lights at the mains switch. He thus saved the lives of owner Karin van der Walt, her son Rowen, 17, and his girlfriend (Picture: Cornél van Heerden)http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Rowers-skiet-mekaar-20101228

Beeld journalist Fanie van Rooyen described the scene: ‘The robbers started shooting wildly in a pitch-dark restaurant. However their shots only hit the walls and each other: two were injured of whom one died. A regular customer at the Bull&Bush-restaurant at a Tierpoort Pretoria smallholding had turned off the lights – which confused the gang. The four black men had forced open a security gate at around 1am and burst into the restaurant just as owner’s son Rowan van der Walt, 17, was at the door waiting to close up. His mother Karin told Beeld newspaper that the gangsters shouted “Rowen fall flat’ in Afrikaans before the first three shots were fired. (However Rowen had never met the men before in his life). Patron Quintus Koster had saved al their lives by causing confusion by turning off the lights. “If he hadn’t acted as quickly this could have been an absolute tragedy. He is a true hero,’ said Mrs Van der Walt. Koster said his first thought was ‘how am I going to get my girl to a place where they would not spot her?" I just turned off the electricity mains’ switch about 4 metres away from me and pushed my girl behind a cigarette machine. I just did what I did to keep my girl safe.’ One gunman was hit twice in the head and died on the scene two hours later, a second man was shot in the upper body. The other two had carried him with them as they fled but police located the injured man at a nearby smallholding. Koster: “I hid with my girl and noticed that two of the men dragged the third man away with them, but he seemed badly injured’. He did not know why the gunmen yelled at young Rowen to fall flat: ‘it sounds as if the phrase was taught to them because they didn’t sound as if they could speak Afrikaans otherwise. And Rowen doesn’t know them.’ Young Rowen confirmed this. He saw the injured man fall over, blood spurting from his gunshot-wounds. His mother said it was a miracle. “How else? Fifteen shots fired and only the gangsters were hit.’ SAPS spokesman Johannes Jafta confirmed the attack; police confiscated a 9mm pistol and still were looking for the other 2. The injured man is under police guard at hospital.http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Rowers-skiet-mekaar-20101228

2010-12-28 Smallholder Willie van Zyl, 58, saved his life when he moved his head just before the armed black man pulled the trigger of the revolver pushed into the Boer pensioner’s mouth. The shot injured his face but he survived, said his newphew Johan Pretorius, 47. “He’s still talking with difficulty, but told me that the attacker pushed the revolver barrel into his mouth to shoot him dead, but he pulled his face away at the last minute’.

Mr Van Zyl was found bleeding away on his bed six hours later at the smallholding near the Baviaanspoort prison near Pretoria by his nephew who had gone to investigate after he was unable to raise his uncle by phone: the attackers had taken his cellphone. Pretorius said the bullet crushed Van Zyl’s cheekbone in several places and ended up behind his right ear – which doctors hope to remove within two weeks. “It’s apparently a complicated operation needing three or four doctors.” The nephew said that his uncle was ‘fully conscious but under heavy pain medication. Beeld asked comment from SAPS w/o Mike Mbewe who said it was ‘suspected that four men entered the smallholding from the rear and broke a bedroom window to break in. They immediately shot Van Zyl in his bed before plundering the pensioner’s meager belongings and fleeing.Van Zyl is single and has no children. http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Rowers-het-rewolwer-in-sy-mond-gedruk-20101228

2010-12-28 – LINDEN, Transvaal. Afrikaans-language expert Dr Anton Prinsloo, 69, was attacked on Christmas eve by three armed men in his living room and was still able to joke about it. He said the gunmen had ‘no culture: they stole my Johnnie Walker Red Label but walked right past my KWV 10-year-old brandy’.

Jacques Steenkamp reports in Beeld from Johannesburg that Prinsloo, a former chairman of the South African Academy for Science and Art’s language-commission, was in the living room at around 2am. He had fallen asleep in front of the TV while his wife Fida, 67 was asleep upstairs and his son Van Zyl Prinsloo, 39, visiting from Cape Town sleeping in another room. The attackers came in by unscrewing the burglar bars. When they turned on the living room lights Prinsloo woke up to find a gun pointing at him. “They threatened to kill us if we didn’t cooperate’. The men took the Prinsloo upstairs to the main bedroom where the entire family was covered up by a blanket on a bed before the house was plundered of laptop computers, cellphones and cameras. But they ignored the KWV 10-year-old brandy… worth about R200 a bottle. http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Rowers-wat-KWV-bottel-los-het-geen-kultuur-nie-20101228-2

BLOEMFONTEIN. – Boer businessman Hennie Viljoen was ambushed on Monday December 27 2010, stabbed and bludgeoned to death with huge boulders by armed black men who were waiting for him at the entrance to his Bloemspruit smallholding, 122 Cypress Drive, Hoëveld near Bloemfontein.

Volksblad journalist Vicus Bürger was told at the crime scene that the Boer fuel-station owner had just withdrawn R4,000 cash from its cash register. As he stepped from his Peugeot 407 to open the entrance gate to the family homestead he was stabbed, attacked with huge rocks and murdered. The attackers tried to use his Peugeot as a getaway car but crashed it and fled on foot. Mr Viljoen is survived by his wife Ciselia and two daughters: Red Cross Hospital clinical technologist Cicelia jr. (23) and Free State student Anette (21).

Police were ‘very uncooperative’, claimed neighbour Barend Swart. He was heading home with fiancee Marilize Hayward when they found Viljoen’s crashed Peugeot lying on its roof. They rushed to the homestead and found a tragic scene at the gate: Mrs Viljoen, desperately trying to revive her husband with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Swart then helped by massaging his heart. “I realised he was dead but just kept trying,’ the grief-stricken Mrs Viljoen said later. Swart then found Viljoen’s cellphone in the veldt and repeatedly tried to phone the nearby Bloemspuit police station – but only raised them after trying repeatedly. ” And when someone finally answered, the police on the other end claimed that they ‘didn’t know where the smallholding was located,’ he said.http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Bloemfonteiner-met-klippe-doodgeslaan-20101228

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‘Willem Jacobus Serfontein and wife Anna, a farm couple in their sixties, were attacked by three black men in their homestead on December 27 2010. Mr Serfontein had stepped outside to turn on his water-pump and when he returned to the homestead his wife was attacked by three black men who were trying to strangle her to death with an electric cord. Serfontein was injured while fighting with the men in an attempt to save her life. He was bashed over the head with an iron bar and sustained heavy bruising across his body as well as an injured hand and arm. He was treated at a local hospital. The Volksblad report does not describe how the couple were rescued and whether anything was stolen at all..http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Soveelste-plaasaanval-in-Oos-Vrystaat-20101228

2010-12-28 Marietie Louw-Carstens of the pro-ANC Afrikaans daily Beeld records a warning from Jan Viljoen, chairman of the Transvaal Agricultural Union in the Limpopo region, ‘to not take to vigilante actions’ to revenge the cruel torching-murders of Boer couple Casper, 55, and Daleen Aucamp, 52 of Thabazimbi. Their torched bodies were found on Friday 17 December in the trunk of their Toyota Land Cruiser. Said Viljoen: ‘this barbarity which is spreading like a cancer through the rural areas cannot be stopped with devilish methods. Evil cannot be fought with more evil – it will merely strengthen it.” Lt. col Mohale Ramatseba of the SAPS described the final minutes of the Boer couple as follows: ‘they were stabbed several times with knives. It’s not clear whether they were still alive when they were put into the trunk of their vehicle before they were torched’. The Aucamp couple’s daughters had to identify their parents by the JEWELLERY they were still wearing. As usual the SAPS described this as an ‘ordinary robbery’: the farmer’s cellphone, some cash and a credit card were found in possession of the arrested Zimbabwe man named as Brighton Mafanedza, 26. Viljoen said a wave of ‘great restlessness is spreading across the farming areas because of the growing violence against us.’ Mafanedza recently appeared in a Thabazimbi court to set the date of his bail-application for January 20 2011. He remains in custody. .http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/2-verkoolde-lyke-in-kar-Boere-moenie-nou-eie-reg-gebruik-20101228

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '